The former Australian opener had documented struggles countering the swing and seam of Bhuvneshwar Kumar in his pomp.
Aaron Finch came up with a hilarious response to a fan query based on his renowned struggles against Indian swing merchant Bhuvneshwar Kumar. The former Aussie skipper and opening batter made fun of his own to reassert why he couldn’t unlock the mystery that Bhuvneshwar tended to symbolise for him.
Finch said he tried for more than a decade but couldn’t find out why his frontpad would invariably play fodder to Bhuvneshwar’s mesmerising inswing and he was out LBW frequently in ODIs and T20Is they locked horns in.
There were multiple occasions where the explosive but technically vulnerable right-hander tried to advance at the ball or even tinkered with his stance at the crease. But even then, Bhuvneshwar would find a way to dismiss him through the gates or take the outside edge with the one straightening enough or swinging away.
The two experienced cricketers never came face to face in Tests. But Bhuvneshwar got his man out six times in international cricket, four of those in the 50-overs game, including India’s impressive 2-1 ODI series victory on the 2018-19 trip Down Under – their first and till date only bilateral ODI series win in Australia.
Aaron Finch got his funny bones ticking for a question on Twitter where this fan of the former Aussie giant asked him to elaborate on why he feels Bhuvneshwar Kumar enjoyed such wood on him, instigating if it was his feet that kept moving across and left him plumb on deliveries coming in.
To this, Finch tweeted in the affirmative, stating he failed to control that frontfoot going across for the 15 years of his career at the international stage, causing great laughter for the fans following the cricketer at his own expense.
Yep!! Tried for 15 years to stop that happening 😂 https://t.co/5g1b0rFPRH
— Aaron Finch (@AaronFinch5) August 10, 2023
With Finch retiring at the end of the T20 World Cup in Australia and Bhuvneshwar going off the boil, being dropped from India’s limited-overs set-up in recent months, the talk and the clips of the one-sided nature of their rivalry have fizzled off the stage.
But when the two cricketers were in action, there was an air of inevitabilty to the proceedings as India would straightaway throw the ball to Bhuvnesneshwar the moment they saw the sight of Finch and enjoyed great success depending on their veteran medium quick.
